72 Migrantes #65
Mayra Izabel Cifuentes Pineda
By: Laura Toribio
Translated by: Ana Recio & Cesar Parra
Only 26 hours. No more than 26 were left when you called your mother for the last time. Almost nothing, Mayra, after the 14 days of travel since you left your land, Guatemala, en route to the United States. Those hours were nothing since you had already been living for 24 years in a village of La Gomera in the city of Esquintla, in misery and without options. Seeing your dad break his back cutting fruit in a farm for a few cents, barely enough to provide enough food for you and your six brothers.
They were only beans. What were 26 hours? Since it cost you a month to make the most difficult decision for a mother: abandoning your child. You had to do it, you Gustavo, your five year old little one. But you had no choice, I know, your mother confessed that to me, you didn’t want him to have your luck: dropping out of the fourth grade with only the option of living in a room made of aluminum that wasn’t his to own, it was rented.
Caramel skinned with sleepy eyes, nappy haired and short. I know you yearned for a dignified life for you and yours, and they know it too. And you made that very clear on that fourth day in August when you marched out: you promised your son a bike and a robot; your dad that you’d send him money so he didn’t have to work any longer; to yourself, that you’d save so you could build a house for your mom and your brothers.
You had yet to find out that you were going to work in New Jersey, where you’d arrive to meet with your uncle and cousin, but you’d already decided you weren’t going to be away from your son for more than two years. You left him in your moms care, and asked him to look after her as well. And you left in search of what Guatemala simply denied you of: opportunity.
She also wished she was with her mother; she missed her. Her mother had plans for her: she would go to school in New York, then work and maybe some day get married. A simple deal. Besides a park, a volcano and beaches, the town also had coyotes that announced their presence outside the houses.
On August 10th Yeimi headed to the U.S She was wearing a turquoise shirt and jeans. The coyote got three thousand dollars in advance, out of the seven thousand in total of the agreement. The grandparents gave their blessings. She spoke to them twice over the phone to let them know she was in Guatemala, and that everything was OK. They didn’t hear from her again. A few days later their dreams were crushed, by monsters just like in fairytales.
She carried her birth certificate in one of her pockets: her ticket to a city she did not know and where her dream would carry on. Yeimi’s story needed not to end this way.